


Seeds to the Wind

by NightFlowerLuv



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Character Study, Ensemble Focus, Gen, I'm not sure whether I'm going to ship or not but tags will be updated if I decide to, In a sense, Post-Canon, THE ORGANIZATION FANDOM IS AWAKE, Team Bonding, post-kh3, so let's write ALL THE FIC WE CAN lol, they're all humans and real actually good people again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2019-11-07 20:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightFlowerLuv/pseuds/NightFlowerLuv
Summary: Chasing ghosts, chasing memories... however futile it might seem, it's in our nature to seek answers that lie just out of reach. However, to regain the pages of a story lost to time, and to gradually step out of the shadows, it takes more than just desire -- it takes teamwork, and it takes empathy, and those are skills it takes practice to learn.Anyone can do it, though, if they want to. Or at least, that's what these folks are banking on.Alternatively:The dust has settled on the conflict between light and darkness, but many questions still remain. A unique set of people is uniquely situated to answer those questions, should they find the drive and the motivation; and, of course, only if they don't wind up killing each other first.





	1. Taking Root

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT KINGDOM HEARTS 3 I HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU'RE GOING TO BE FOLLOWED UP ON BUT I KNOW WHO I CARE ABOUT AND I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO
> 
> As someone who is ecstatic that I can love Marluxia/Lauriam with all of my heart for real now, someone who enjoys the heck out of KHUx, and someone who thinks Demyx is a delight, I felt a huge need to follow the story of the former Dandelions, and in the process follow up on all of the other characters I've come to care so much about that aren't ever going to be main focuses of the KH plot (by which, yes, I mostly mean the rest of the former Organization). I don't know where Kingdom Hearts's plot is going after this and I don't really know if I'm sure where this FIC is going as a result besides a general idea of tone and themes but my faves DESERVE THE FOCUS and I've only seen like two other Dandelion-centric post-KH3 fics, so LET'S DO THIS!!

_“So,_ **_now_ ** _it all comes back to me…”_

After the pain, there was a void — then that void gave way to swirling images. Not quite dreams, not quite memories; just pieces drifting together in a random array, giving way to consciousness ever so gradually.

_“Now, I am on the cusp of reclaiming my identity… my purpose for being…”_

… a name, suddenly, just on the edge of those thoughts — and now awareness was a _need,_ the desire so strong it forced its way through the haze — what was that _name,_ _I can’t lose it again —_

_“Thanks to you —”_

“Strelitzia!”

He was up, catapulting himself into a standing position. His eyes shot around, searching, not entirely taking in everything, but _where —_

Rapid blinking as the adrenaline faded — he began to see where he was. Naturally, Strelitzia wasn’t there — he realized in some small part of his mind that she might not have been _anywhere_ but there was _no chance_ of him ever admitting such a thing as fact — but besides that, he didn’t know where _here_ was.

It was a dark place, a city lit only by storefront signs and the occasional lamppost, even though none of the stores seemed to have traffic or keepers. No great castle hung in the sky or lay in ruins — no great towers stretched into the sky, either.

He was in some kind of alley near what looked like a shopping district. Did he know this place? It seemed almost familiar, but distantly, as though viewed only once or through some kind of colored lens.

His thoughts were still condensing, and he felt his eyes narrow as his confusion turned to frustration.

Strelitzia. He’d lost her name for so long, and even now, the memories were vague — snatches of short conversations, walks though gardens that never fit together — but the clearest memories _about_ her never _featured_ her.

He had never found her. He couldn’t remember _why_ , but after he’d lost her he’d _never found her,_ and then he’d _forgotten_ her and wasted all those years — but no more.

The only question was where to _start,_ but that wouldn’t be a struggle after a while, he just had to —

“Oh, dude, you ARE here! Sweet!”

… What?

He turned towards the interrupting voice, and — ah. Right. The _other_ part of his memories.

“Man, I didn’t know what I was gonna do if you weren’t, I mean, have you seen this place? Total ghost town, man! It’s like Never Was with a side of rats, man! Rats!”

There was a bit of blessed silence as the exclamation was given time to sink in, not that it needed it. A single raised eyebrow was the response.

“Why are you here?”

“What? Dude, I’m looking for _you!_ Do you even know where ‘here’ is?”

“You do, then?”

 _“C’mon,_ man, I’m not THAT useless!”

The gesticulations were probably funny, to some people or in some circumstances, but there were things that had to be _done —_

“I don’t have time for this,” was the audible completion of that thought, and it accompanied a dismissive headshake.

“Woah, woah, _dude,_ c’mon!”

Demyx — why was he _here_ , where _was_ here, so many _questions_ when there were _things to be done_ — snatched Marluxia — no, not that name, what was the right name? — by the wrist, not letting him turn around.

“Look, dude, did you just wake up again or something? Like, where would you even be _going?”_

“I…”

Marluxia — no that wasn’t _right_ , hadn’t he _just_ known what the right name was — cast his gaze to the ground, then around at his surroundings.

“… You’re right,” he said, after a moment. “I apologize.”

“Oh, uh…” Demyx blinked a few times, apparently confused, for whatever reason. “Uh, anyway, this place, right, it’s apparently just a place that shows up when people’s worlds aren’t around for them, so Zex — er, Ienzo, he said if you and Larxene and Luxord were anywhere we knew you’d be here, and you are! Cool, right?”

“Um…” Multiple responses were warring in Marluxia’s head — part of him didn’t even feel like he _wanted_ to respond — but actually, the idea Demyx was describing _was_ somewhat interesting, wasn’t it? A world that only appeared when it was needed? “… Sure, I suppose.”

Demyx blinked rapidly again. “Uh, are you okay, dude? You don’t usually, like, engage, uh…” he shook his head. “Man, whatever. I know you said something about, like, not having time or whatever, but I was hoping you could at least, like, stick around until I find the other two?”

Marluxia tilted his head a bit to the side. “You said Larxene and Luxord? What for?”

“‘Cause’a what Xemnas said, remember?” Another wide gesticulation. “Sheesh, where is your brain today, dude? I’m talking about that ‘ancient keyblade legacy’ stuff he brought up that one time and then never got followed up on, it’s been buggin’ the heck outta me, y’know?”

“… Keyblade…” Marluxia’s gaze lowered to the ground and his eyes narrowed. He had been just as confused as Demyx sounded when Xemnas had brought it up, but at the same time… the memories were all _right there,_ but he couldn’t fit them _together!_

Where had Strelitzia fit into this? What was the _name_ he was supposed to have?

“Dude, c’mon, I dunno why you’re so out of it, but I don’t wanna be in this creepy town longer than I have to, alright?”

Demyx turned to leave gesturing out of the alley into the shopping district. Marluxia’s frown deepened, but he followed, questions still churning.

“Alright, so… hm…” Demyx crossed his arms and muttered to himself. “So I came from… over there,” he pointed at a set of large wooden doors in the walls that surrounded the shopping district — walled cities weren’t uncommon, necessarily, but it had certain implications — “so, hm…”

Demyx’s overly dramatic thought processes felt like they should’ve been irritating, but for some reason Marluxia also felt like they should have been amusing; this whole ‘heart’ thing was entirely too frustrating with his memories in pieces like this, so he’d mostly tuned Demyx out to try and process his actual surroundings. He doubted he’d recognize anything, but it would be good to locate possible vantage points.

The central area of the the district they’d walked out into was surrounded by an upper level of walkways, which seemed to lead to a building slightly larger than the rest. On the same side of the plaza as the large wooden doors — though the doors were on the higher level — there was a fountain with a mural backdrop. Marluxia realized, a little belatedly, that he liked the mosaic of butterflies quite a bit; he wasn’t sure he would have a few days ago.

He frowned at the reminder that his head was a mess. All he could latch onto was Strelitzia, and the name that _belonged to him_ yet remained out of his awareness…

Hm. There was also that ‘keyblade legacy’ Demyx had mentioned — something about that was connecting to _something,_ and it was a lead to follow, at least, moreso than just Strelitzia’s name was.

Besides that, if Larxene was here… yes, it would be wrong to leave her out — however muddled his head was, _that_ much, at least, was clear.

“Dude, _seriously,_ are you even _here_ right now?”

Ah, he seemed to be genuinely irritating Demyx. That was… unfortunate, to say the least, especially given how infrequently it happened.

“My apologies,” he said, bowing his head slightly for just a moment. “My memories from ‘before’ are proving hard to make sense of.”

“Before? You mean, like, the old life?” Demyx tilted his head. “I don’t really think about it much, but I guess if we’re all tied to some crazy legacy it probably matters more than I’ve been giving it credit for…”

He frowned. “Now that you mention it, I don’t really remember much from the old life either. Weird.”

Marluxia raised an eyebrow and tilted his head slightly again. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“I dunno, man,” Demyx shrugged. “If I worried about all that, I’d drive myself crazy. Just the thing Xemnas said is already buggin’ the heck outta me, if I tried to figure out _everything_ I didn’t know or remember, like, I’d never have time for _anything,_ y’know?”

Marluxia’s expression didn’t change. “… I suppose that… makes some sense?”

“Well, if you’re, like, actually full awake now, we should — GAH!”

A fireball whizzed past Demyx’s head, and he sprang away violently. Marluxia looked to where it had come from, and saw a trio of the small elemental Heartless, doing their signature spins that Marluxia had always assumed gave them their melodic designations. The red one was already charging another fireball, and the yellow one next to it sent up a jolt of electricity before either Demyx or Marluxia could do more than duck away.

“Of course,” Demyx let out in a high-pitched voice, “of _course_ this place has Heartless. Why did I think a place like this wouldn’t? Why can I _never_ get a place without these things?”

Marluxia scoffed — these were hardly worth this kind of reaction. If there were _more_ , perhaps that would be worth worrying about, but these —

“Wh — woah, WHAT?!”

Petals filled the air, and in one strike, all three Heartless vaporized into wisps of shadow.

Three hearts floated, silently, upwards into the sky.

Marluxia turned back towards Demyx to find him gaping in abject shock, and, eyes narrowing in confusion, asked, “What?”

“Uh…” Demyx shakily raised a hand and pointed down towards Marluxia’s side. “Dude?”

“What?” Marluxia repeated, raising his arm, utterly baffled. “What are y—”

… Ah.

Marluxia blinked once, then again, and continued blinking with increasing rapidity, his expression frozen in place.

A guard like a crown of laurels stemmed out from the wooden handle of the weapon he now held in his hand. The wood extended out past the handle, covered in a pattern of cherry petals, and at the end, a pink flower bloomed forth like a great bird spreading its wings, two cherries having like tassels as its base. Though the weapon seemed fragile on the surface, he could feel immense power flowing through it — and of course he could feel it, because that was _his power._

His heart.

His _Keyblade._

As his blinking slowed back down — as his brain and heart finally, truly came together — a smile spread slowly across his face. Laughter began bubbling out of his throat, and while he could tell from out of the corner of his eye that Demux’s confusion was only growing, he had no desire to address it, especially not if it involved quashing what he was feeling.

A noise, to his left, drew his attention, and, grin still in place, he shot towards the group of Soldier Heartless that had materialized.

“Begone!”

Once again, it only took one strike, power emanating off of his Keyblade in waves. A wash of petals danced in the wake of the blow, and more hearts floated silently into the sky.

A deep breath turned into more laughter as he raised his weapon straight into the air, triumph and relief flowing with every beat of his heart.

“Uh…” Demyx hesitantly spoke up. “Are, uh… are you good, Mar—”

“Lauriam,” he cut Demyx off, eyes still fixed on the flower at the end of his Keyblade. He took a deep breath, letting the euphoria settling into a low thrum as he turned around to meet Demyx’s eyes properly. “My name is Lauriam.”

“Uh…” Demyx’s eyes flicked back and forth, displaying his confusion. “… kay. So, uh, what Xemnas was talking about…?”

“Seems to have been accurate, yes,” Lauriam hefted his blade a bit, still enjoying the simple fact of having it in his hand. “The pieces haven’t all fallen into place, but… I definitely remember something that would qualify as an ‘ancient keyblade legacy’.”

They were bittersweet realizations — memories of his own demise mixing with the image of a wasteland that had killed hundreds or even thousands of fellows-in-arms, and the sister he’d lost even before any of that. How long ago had that been, he wondered? How would he go about putting faces to the names he now remembered?

He had no clues. No way to start looking.

Just a legacy filled with questions, and —

The sound of an explosion echoed from some far-off point of town, and as Lauriam spun towards the source, he saw remnants of some great blast of lightning fizzle out of the sky.

So she _was_ here, then.

Lauriam scanned the shopping district’s buildings, and leapt onto the nearest awning, only properly recalling that not all awnings were structurally sound footholds _after_ he’d used it to spring onto the most accessible roof. At that point, the realization didn’t much matter, so the confidence stayed in Lauriam’s smile as he turned back to Demyx.

“Didn’t you wanted to find the others?”

Demyx shook his head, face still almost-comically confused. “Man, this is _not_ how I expected today to go…”

* * *

Demyx, despite his confusion and a few complaints, kept up with Lauriam’s roof-hopping without much difficulty. He had _no_ idea how Lauriam was keeping track of where that one blast of lightning had happened, but hey, it was a direction, who was he to complain?

Lauriam, though, that was definitely not the name Demyx would’ve guessed. It seemed right, though; maybe it was just the surety he’d said it with or something, but whatever Demyx had _thought_ his original name would’ve been seemed totally silly at this point.

So anyway, they jumped over a few rooftops, including the ones on the walls keeping districts of the town sectioned off — ugh, walls inside cities were Heartless-magnet GIVEAWAYS, _why_ had he gotten his hopes up? — and made it to a large, open square with another fountain off to one of its sides, though this one was a bit smaller than the one in the shopping district. A lot of neon signs hung around the walls surrounding the square, and lights studded the rails of the walkways the led from the district they’d just been in down to the open space.

There was an exposed cable sparking dangerously in one of the corners, which Demyx would’ve paid a lot more attention to in most contexts, but it was mostly relevant in this instance for being absolutely overshadowed by the giant amounts of electricity coming off of the person fighting off several of the big rotund Heartless in the center of the open area.

“Yep, that’s her,” he said blithely, though Lauriam had already left off of the roof at the mob of Heartless. Demyx blinked a few times, then sighed, because not getting involved was now definitely not an option unless he wanted to completely ruin his chances as keeping the two of them around to figure out this crazy mystery. Muttering bitterly to himself, he whipped out his sitar and used a jet of water to propel himself into the fray.

The shockwave from Lauriam’s initiating slash had just faded out when Demyx’s boots hit the ground, and the Heartless Lauriam had sent tumbling away got handily caught up in the geysers Demyx let loose as he landed.

Larxene looked between the two with an _absolutely_ flabbergasted expression, which Demyx absolutely _would’ve_ laughed at if there weren’t giant burly Heartless all around him swinging their arms around and hurling themselves all over the place, but those things were happening, so Demyx was going to have to have fun later.

“Sorry to drop in!” He couldn’t help but quip — alright, so he wasn’t going to not at least _try_ to have fun — “I’m sure you probably, like, had this handled and everything, but we were lookin’ for ya anyway, so..”

“Hopefully you don’t mind the assistance _too_ terribly, my dear,” Lauriam put in between a couple of sweeping slashes.

“Wh—” Larxene recovered from her shock quickly, shaking her head violently and saying, “You know what? It’s about time!”

Another giant blast of lighting shot straight past Demyx’s head, and yeah, okay, it hit a guy about to clobber him, but, like —

“Dude!” he yelped, and although in his opinion he was well within the realms of reasonable reactions, Larxene and Lauriam seemed perfectly happy to ignore it and continue unloading their giant, area-covering attacks. Rude.

Demyx huffed and played a frustrated power chord to cause another round of geysers to blast back a couple of Heartless the other two had missed.

“How many of these things _are_ there?” He whined, throwing his head back dramatically — and yeah, he was admitting he was whining. He hadn’t signed up for this, okay? Just because he _could_ take out the mindless creatures hell-bent on destruction and assimilation didn’t mean he should _have_ to, right? No one should have to!

Ugh, but they were _there,_ so someone _was_ going to have to deal with them, and he was there and he _could_ deal with them, so he would, but that didn’t mean he had to like it! And he wanted it over as soon as possible!

The thing about _that_ is that getting something over with as soon as possible meant being, like, actually efficient, and however much it might seem like he wouldn’t, Demyx actually understood that perfectly well. He summoned a line of water spheres and smashed them all into one of the Heartless one after another, then used some jets of water to propel himself over another of Larxene’s giant blasts — she’d already zipped across the plaza to zap something else, so Demyx didn’t have to worry about accidentally splashing her or something else that might get him totally fried; that was always nice, Demyx appreciated being alive.

Between Demyx’s expansive water attacks, Larxene’s giant blasts, and Lauriam’s frankly _ridiculous_ slash range for what he was currently swinging around, the fact that there’d been around two dozen of the things in total wound up mattering a lot less than it seemed like it might’ve at first. It took a minute of waiting to be _sure_ another five of them weren’t about to pop out of the shadows, but the process _was,_ ultimately, efficient.

As soon as they _were_ sure the Heartless were gone, Larxene burst into giggles that rapidly evolved into full-on cackling. She did a series of honest-to-gods twirls and hopped around Lauriam, sparks trailing off of her like absent thoughts, and Demyx found himself blinking rapidly in some mix between concern and outright confusion.

“We’re back!” Larxene exclaimed, showing her arms up in the air. “Powers and all, and you’re here and I’m here and there’s NO GEEZER IN MY HEAD! Heeheeheeheeeee!”

Lauriam, for his part, seemed almost as excited, though it seemed tempered by something closer to amusement. Still, though, his voice was tangibly warm as he said, “It is _so_ good to see you again, my dear.”

“So, where are we off to?” Larxene continued, still sort of meandering around the big plaza with an occasional spin — she barely seemed to have registered that Lauriam had spoken. “It’s not like we have to worry about pretty much anything anymore now, but I guess I kinda wanna know where we are now, maybe? But we can go wherever we _want_ so it’s not really —”

She froze as she met Demyx’s eyes, her ecstatic grin falling away into a dramatic sneer. Demyx huffed and scowled in response. _Rude,_ seriously, what had he ever done to deserve _any_ of this?

“Oh. You _are_ actually here,” she said, all of the disgust Demyx had expected dripping from every word. “Don’t you have some cliff to go run away off of or something?”

Demyx opened his mouth, then closed it again. He took a _deep_ breath and then gave the _heaviest_ sigh he could possibly muster.

“I don’t know _what_ I was expecting!” He threw his arms up into the air. “Fine, you know what? _Fine!”_

He flung his arm towards Lauriam in a dramatic point. _“He_ can explain, and then we can go find Luxord and see if there are _any_ answers or _any_ closure _anywhere at all_ in my future! Whatever!”

He spun around and began to walk over to the side of the plaza, all while Larxene reared back and somehow grimaced even harder.

“Luxord?” She spat. “Why would I want anything to do with _that_ card-carrying cryptic with his stupid —”

She cut off, and Demyx turned back around to see that Lauriam had raised his Keyblade into her field of vision — her eyes were fixed on it, as made sense.

“Elrena,” Lauriam said, slowly — gently — and it took Demyx a minute to register that he’d used what must’ve been Larxene’s old/real name. He looked steadily at her face, though her gaze remained fixed on his Keyblade, and continued, “How much do you remember?”

“… Is… Is that…” Larxene — was Demyx allowed to refer to her as ‘Elrena’ at this point? — looked briefly at Lauriam’s face before staring back at the Keyblade. “… Are… Am I…?”

“Elrena,” Lauriam’s voice was still steady, and his expression was gentle, too; Demyx hadn’t seen so much variety on this guy’s face maybe _ever_ before today… “Do you remember how we met?”

Lauriam’s free hand slowly moved towards Larxene-or-maybe-Demyx-should-just-call-her-Elrena’s face, and her eyes shot toward the movement, though the rest of her body was still stiff. Her eyes had been getting wider by the second, and her breathing wasn’t anywhere close to even, but Lauriam continued speaking.

“Do you remember our true names?”

Demyx suddenly and _intensely_ felt like he was intruding on something, like, Really Private, but Elrena was now reaching out her hand, lightning sparking around her arm to further illustrate the tension in her body.

Then the lightning swirled and exploded out from her palm, accompanied by a different kind of glow, and then a metal handle was firmly in her grasp. A circular handle studded with spikes surrounded her hand, and similar spikes lined the length of the weapon, though some of them were concealed by the tangle of bright yellow wires that coiled around it. Those wires wrapped around to connect to two metal pieces shaped kind of like dumbbells, or something along those lines, but the round ends of them sparked with connected arcs of electricity. At the other end of the wires, at the base of the weapon, a keychain that seemed to be made entirely out of electricity itself swung lightly as the weapon’s wielder jerked back at the sight of it in her hand, and at the very end, a charm shaped almost like a butterfly glowed with the same raw power that surged through the rest of the weapon.

There was no way that wasn’t a Keyblade.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Demyx thought to himself that he _really_ needed to sit down, but he kept his big mouth _shut_ about it because the Really Probably Private Moment was continuing, and contrary to what most people believed, he did, in fact, know what _tact_ was.

“How… how did we _get_ here?” Elrena said, voice quiet and just a bit shaky. “What — how did we _forget?_ How _long_ has it been?”

She met Lauriam’s eyes, and the steadiness and reassurance that had been there faded into bitterness.

“I don’t know,” he said. “There are still so many questions, not least of which…”

His eyes drifted to the flower at the end of his own Keyblade, and Elrena gasped.

“Strelitzia! Wh- how could either of us _forget_ her?!” She burst out, nearly stomping with rage. Her grip on her Keyblade tightened in a way that looked almost painful, and Demyx, despite himself, couldn’t help but swallow self-consciously. “She — we’re still going to _find_ her somehow, right?”

Lauriam blinked a few times, then smiled, softly and warmly. “Of course, but we don’t have nearly enough information to find her as we are now — we didn’t even back when we thought we knew who we were and what was going on. Demyx over there —” he turned to meet Demyx’s eyes, and Demyx himself couldn’t help but jump — “has his own questions about the gaps in our memories, as well as our ‘legacy’, and wants them answered. Even if we regained our memories on our own, I’m not sure we could find Strelitzia without help, whatever form it comes in.”

Lauriam took Elrena’s free hand with his own before continuing. “Thank you for staying by my side for so long, my dear. Will you accompany me still?”

Elrena stand at their joined hands for a few seconds, then looked over at Demyx — and yes, he jumped again, what do you want from him — before making eye contact with Lauriam.

The moment stretched out, Demyx feeling more out of place with every passing second, until Elrena gave a small sigh.

“Man, what _happened_ to us?” She muttered, shaking her head a bit. “Of course I wanna know how we got here. Of _course_ I wanna find Strelitzia! I don’t want us to need help, I don’t wanna work with Slip-n-Slide over there or Poker Face or anyone else because just _thinking_ about them pisses me off, but…”

She paused, seemingly trying to reign in her tone, then nodded to herself. “I remember, now, y’know? There’s things that are more important than how much people get on my nerves.”

There was a bit of humor in her voice, by the end, and Demyx felt a bit of the tension in the air fade. In that vein…

“Uh, question,” he said, raising a finger. Whatever peace or joy was in Elrena’s face immediately faded back into annoyance as gaze flicked over to him, and Lauriam turned his head with one eyebrow pointedly raised, though he didn’t seem any more, like, actively upset than that. Demyx didn’t let either expression get him down, because the entire point of this was getting questions _answered,_ darn it! “Sorry, I was just wondering, uh… who’s Strelitzia?”

Both of them seemed entirely taken by surprise by the question — to a pretty funny degree, if Demyx was being honest; their eyes went wide and they shared a glance and a few rapidly changing expressions before actually responding.

“Right, I guess you wouldn’t know,” Elrena tilted her head some.

“Strelitzia was my sister,” Lauriam clarified. “She went missing, and I wasn’t able to find her, despite my best efforts. The details of it escape me, but…”

“Oh _man,_ ” Elrena said suddenly as Lauriam began to trail off. “The Keyblade War, that _really happened,_ oh my god, we were _bossed around where people we knew died,_ Lauriam!”

What?

“It _is_ quite a thing to process…” Lauriam frowned.

Huh?

“… uuuuuuh,” Demyx said, feeling the gears in his head turning, “www _why_ are you guys talking about the thing old man Xehanort was obsessed with like you were _there?”_

Elrena huffed, looking at him like he was stupid, which was just _seriously rude,_ come _on._

“Because we _were,_ idiot,” she said, moving her free hand to her hip and lifting her Keyblade up. “That’s why we have these, it’s what Xemnas was blathering about when he talked about our ‘ancient keyblade legacy’!”

… Say

**_“WHAAAAAAAAAT?!”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! I decided to give Lauriam and Elrena original Keyblades for this fic because A) it's fun to come up with ideas and B) they're definitely at least somewhat different from the people they were when they first got them, so even though they have them back there's still a lot of exploration to be done there. I've actually drawn both of the Keyblades and posted them to my tumblr, if you're interested! Lauriam's, called Blooming Paradise, is the one on the left in this post, and Elrena's, which I've dubbed Savage Coil, is [here](http://livebloggingandreblogging.tumblr.com/post/183108517359/more-more-keyblades-you-say-why-yes-this-is) (pretend there's spikes on the handle, I accidentally forgot them >w>)
> 
> I hope you're looking forward to more! Will Demyx's outburst ruin whatever goodwill he's managed to accrue thus far? Will Lauriam's vocal affectations ever even out in a real way? How will Luxord be brought into all this?
> 
> Find out next time, on Seeds to the Wind!


	2. Bioaccumulation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this sure took a while! The reasoning behind that is partly the fact that I'm working on like five projects at once because focus is an elusive beast I only occasionally tame that occasionally attacks me and the things I love with unavoidable abandon, and if I try to focus on just one project I'm liable to go crazy from burnout. The rest of the reasoning is COLLEGE. Specifically computer science and coding, my GOD no one told me not only how time-consuming but how DRAINING it is! I've been inching my way forward on all of my many projects, and I can finally present the next chapter of Seeds to the Wind to you! I'm pretty proud of it, despite the wait, so I hope you enjoy it!

The Emperor.

The Chariot.

The Star.

The Wheel of Fortune.

It took a bit to understand what they meant — or how he _knew_ what they meant — but gradually the information they wished to share came together in his mind.

What an interesting scene he’d come across…

* * *

“WHAAAAAAT?!”

Why? Why was this what was happening? Why in _all the worlds?!_

Elrena’s hand was firmly attached to her face at this point. Why did they need this loser’s help, again? Did they, even? Just because _maybe_ he was connected to all the stuff they needed to find out didn’t mean they _had_ to deal with him, right? Kicking him to the curb would be fast, easy, and cost nothing. Definitely not any sort of remorse later, or anything, right?

Right?!

… _Ugh._

So she didn’t really want to kick him to the curb, because that would mean being the person she’d been. The person who’d kicked people around for fun that she _didn’t want to be anymore,_ for some reason. The internal conflict between the old, _old_ memories, the ones that were muddled and didn’t even feature _that many_ actual friends, and the snide and angry thoughts that jumped into her brain with every single happening was making her _sick._

She cared. Somehow. Even despite going for _such a long time_ not caring, her heart was back and making its presence known by loudly declaring that it _wanted to care._ All of the reactions that came so instinctively to her, the anger, the violence, they all got turned around in her brain and thrown back at her. The memories from both of the lives she’d lived mixed together into an _absolute mess_ and it pissed her off.

 _So many things_ pissed her off, or they had. It seemed so stupid, so _awful_ to the part of her she’d gotten back, but then _that_ feeling seemed pointless and stupid to what she’d _been_ for as long as she _really_ remembered. Despite that, though, her heart wasn’t going down without a fight… it really was über powerful, whatever those old geezers said.

She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not, though — this all kind of _sucked_ so far.

Demyx had been talking through her thoughts, she processed belatedly, though it seemed like it was mostly confused rambling and most of it seemed directed at himself, so it wasn’t necessary for her to bother with that instead of figuring out her own mental state. Lauriam could handle the nuisance, or something —

“Ah, if I might interrupt?”

… Well, _that_ was a new and yet _unpleasantly familiar_ voice. Elrena whirled, not necessarily feeling in danger but definitely not looking forward to seeing the voice’s source if it was who she thought it was.

“… Well, I suppose this saves us some time, if nothing else,” Lauriam said with a huff. “Your taste for drama hasn’t faded any, I see, Luxord.”

The man in question laughed lowly, stepping towards them from the ramp he’d been standing on, probably watching their whole conversation like the weirdo he was. “Hardly one to talk, on that front,” he said. “My apologies for taking you by surprise, of course; it wasn’t my intention, but I there wasn’t much of an opportunity to cut in, otherwise.”

“Uh-huh,” Elrena let every drop of sarcasm she felt drip from that one utterance. “And let me guess, you _just so happened_ to overhear _everything_ we were just talking about?”

The jerk freaking _grinned._ “I’m afraid you’ve seen right through my hand, though, of course, I was hoping to find you regardless of the circumstances. This does save us time, as you said.”

Elrena twitched. As though the card pun wasn’t bad enough, he felt the need to be funny about his elemental affinity, too?

Supposing his time connection was even _real,_ of course _._ Elrena had yet to be convinced — all _she_ ever saw that loser do was cheat at cards.

 _“Anyway,”_ she said, making her distaste as evident as possible through her tone. “Since we’re all, like, _here_ now, do we actually have a destination in mind, or…?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah!” Demyx piped up, seeming calmer now, though he had to take a few steps forward to remedy the distance he’d gained in his earlier rambling. “I told Ienzo I was coming here, so he should be expecting us? Back in Radiant Garden, I mean.”

Oh, _what?_

 _“Ugh,_ those guys? Are you serious?” Elrena was liking this less and less — the fact that some part of her was the opposite of surprised didn’t make it suck any less.

“I can’t think of any better plays,” Luxord shrugged. “I’m in favor.”

“Somehow, I… don’t think we’ll be entirely welcome…” Lauriam frowned, looking self conscious, for reasons Elrena understood, despite how much she hated the fact that she understood. “… but it does seem like our best option. The more options we have open to us, the better.”

Elrena sighed, but Demyx just gave a dumb thumbs up, giving an equally dumb “Cool!”

He then turned around and opened a dark corridor.

“… Uh, wait,” Elrena said, squinting at the swirling void that suddenly seemed _way_ less convenient than she’d always considered them. “First of all, can we all still do that? Second of all, that’s, like, dangerous, right? Aren’t our hearts in danger and stuff?”

Some parts of her old, _old_ memories were responding to this, somehow, and she couldn’t tell which part of her the suspicion was coming from or how much of her even _was_ suspicious or which part of her was the part she should be listening to at the moment. It _sucked._

Demyx, always ready to make things suck more, just waved a hand dismissively. “C’mon, we had hearts the whole time we were running around through these things before, y’know? You guys still have the coats —” oh, they did, didn’t they, she hadn’t noticed until just then, weird — “so you’ll be fine, let’s go!”

Elrena looked over to Lauriam with an eyebrow raised. Lauriam looked between her and the portal a few times, a small frown forming on his face, then just sort of shrugged. Luxord, meanwhile, was already walking past them towards the portal, and Demyx was already walking through.

“Too late now, then,” Lauriam sighed, stepping forward.

“He better not be letting us out somewhere stupid,” Elrena huffed, not having a choice but to follow.

* * *

“Let’s see… ah, there!”

A rhythmic set of small beeps accompanied a simple, looping tune and the tapping of fingers on glass. A hunched form leaned against a wide window that looked out on a massive set of machines. Next to him was a large computer setup, but right now he was absorbed in the small device he held in his hands. His head tilted back and forth, his bangs blocking part of his view — someone was going to make him cut them, at some point, but that wasn’t important now, however it was affecting his current activity.

“Are you messing with that _again?”_

Ienzo’s head snapped up, his older colleague’s presence taking him entirely by surprise.

“Ah, Even,” Ienzo said, ineffectually pushing his hair back a bit, “Well, you see, I’m actually waiting for something — we don’t have much to do today, do we?”

Ienzo was absolutely not saying what he was waiting _for._ Even was barely alright with the fact that Demyx hung around their workspaces periodically; if he heard where Demyx had gone this time or why before it was the right time, it was bound to be entirely too much trouble for everyone involved.

Ienzo hadn’t exactly been happy with Demyx’s idea either, at first, but given how different he and the others were after everything that had happened, and how much he was willing to put up with even Lea now, let alone how Isa had been integrated… Marluxia and Larxene may have never had the chances Ienzo or Lea or anyone else had to figure out how this whole “existing” business worked, after it all. Everyone deserved that chance — and none of that was mentioning the questions left over in the fallout of Xehanort’s plan. If Marluxia and Larxene were linked to the… unfortunate consequences that accompanied the successes of Xehanort’s defeat, then it was worth seeing what they had to offer.

The defeat jingle played out of the speakers of Ienzo’s Gummiphone, and he jumped. Even gave the device a disdainful glance before blinking and shaking his head — Ienzo wasn’t sure if it was at the device or at himself, given the way Even’s thoughts seemed to be focused as of late.

“Xion, Roxas, and Naminé will be coming today, as you’ve clearly forgotten,” he said. “Don’t get so immersed in whatever you’re waiting for that you forget to come up to assist with the ins — er. Checkup, I suppose, is the right word.”

Even’s face, as usual, broadcast every thought that ran through his head, including the bizarre sense of conflict he apparently had going through his brain between the idea of scientific detachment and the clear _attachment_ he felt towards the very real people his Replica Program had created. Possibly he was wondering when he became a doctor, as well? He was a smart man, having multiple thoughts questioning his actions in such a short time was something he was easily capable of.

It was a familiar game, guessing Even’s thoughts, and a fun one; a rare combination, lately, given the… _circumstances_ of the past, and so Ienzo made sure to savor such moments whenever they came.

“Your dedication to you work is enviable, as always,” he said, smiling. “You know, the phones _are_ there for us to notify each other of things. You could just… call me when they arrive?”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware,” Even huffed, as put upon as ever, and Ienzo held back a laugh — the phones weren’t even hard to use! It was another odd sort of familiarity, though, and the fact that recent events had made Ienzo confident that Even would move past this particular bit of stubbornness — _eventually,_ anyway — made it another positive association.

As Even turned and left, business concluded, Ienzo let himself grimace at the thought of what Demyx’s return would bring. Even’s particular strain of stubborn irritation was only going to make things even more awkward than they might otherwise be, and if Naminé and the others were going to be here when this was all happening that just spelled trouble in every way possible…

Ienzo sighed. There would be no way to know for sure what the results would be until he saw Marluxia and Larxene for himself, and it was too late to be having second thoughts now regardless.

The swirling shadows of a dark corridor slithered up next to him.

Ienzo had no reason to be unnerved, and yet… even though his sensitivity to darkness and its related magic had waned since regaining his heart, the particular stench of the creeping shadows lingered in his mind, along with every other unfortunate memory of the darkness’s power.

Thankfully, Ienzo wasn’t left to ponder on the nature of darkness and his memories thereof for long, because Demyx exited the portal at almost a jog, calling out to Ienzo immediately.

“Enzy!” He gave a wave as he cleared the portal completely, coming around to Ienzo’s other side. “I totally found ‘em! Thanks for the advice, man!”

“And you’re in one piece,” Ienzo replied, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a relief; I hadn’t been sure you’d make it back.”

That was an exaggeration, of course; if nothing else, Demyx’s ability to make it out of tough situations was nothing to turn one’s nose at. Still, Demyx’s reactions to Ienzo’s particular brand of barbs were almost as entertaining as Even’s, as he very quickly proved.

“Seriously?” Demyx gave a dramatic huff, crossing his arms and turning his head away. “Man, between you and the others I don’t know why I even bother to try and be helpful!”

Ienzo laughed, just a bit, and Demyx turned back towards him just enough to show the satisfaction on his face at getting exactly the reaction he’d intended.

The corridor pulsed again, then, and — huh. For whatever reason, Ienzo had almost forgotten that Luxord was part of this situation; he certainly hadn’t expected to see him come through first.

“Ah, Zexion — or, Ienzo, was it?” Luxord’s head tilted to the side a bit as he took stock of Ienzo’s presence. “Shouldn’t be hard to remember. Pleasure to see you again, of course,” he added, along with a small nod.

“… Likewise, or here’s hoping,” Ienzo replied, eyebrow hitching just a bit higher as he nodded in turn.

Luxord didn’t seem very different at all, not that Ienzo had really had much of an opinion about the man before the situation completely fell through, positive or negative. The eye color was right, at least, and a completely neutral variable was better than the _other_ factors at play, so Ienzo was content not to dwell on Luxord overly much at that moment — not when the other variables were walking through the portal right then.

Marluxia and Larxene came through at almost the same time — that much only made sense, of course, as did their expressions being a mix of cautious and suspicious. Their eyes fixed on Ienzo fairly quickly, as also made sense, given the circumstances.

There was a bit of silence; Ienzo didn’t have anything in particular planned out to say — or any desire to be the first to speak — but it seemed the same feeling held true for Marluxia and Larxene.

Arguably that made sense, too, though it didn’t make the silence any less… uncomfortable.

“… Ugh, seriously, guys?” Demyx sighed, thankfully immune to these sorts of social tensions. “Enzy, like I said, I found ‘em where you said they’d be, and I was right to be confused by what Xemnas said, by the way, I want that on the record.”

He pointed around the room as he spoke, first at the newcomers, then at where the portal had been, then at himself, presumably for emphasis, as that was how his wide gestures usually functioned. Turning to Marluxia and Larxene, he said, “Just, like, do the thing! It’s already weird and complicated, don’t make it worse, sheesh!”

“The… thing?” Ienzo didn’t think his eyebrow could get much higher on his face.

Marluxia and Larxene exchanged a glance and something like a shrug.

“Hate to say, but the loser’s got a point,” Larxene said, handily ignoring Demyx’s offended response to her insult. “No point in dragging it out. Just don’t freak out, okay, _Enzy?”_

If Larxene expected Ienzo to be embarrassed about the nickname, she was going to be sorely disappointed; Even had given enough of a show of indignation and embarrassment for the entire former Organization when Demyx had first thought it up, and the memory of his expression far outweighed how silly the actual nickname was in terms of overall effect on Ienzo’s life.

Unfortunately, just because Larxene’s pointed barbs were misaimed didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to get any reaction out of Ienzo.

At first, he saw lightning spark to life around her arm, and naturally tensed, mostly out of confusion rather than anger — she wouldn’t just outright attack at this point, would she?

The confusion mounted as the lightning coiled around the length of her arm, not shooting out at anything, simply cascading into her now open and outstretched hand, morphing and twisting into a weapon clutched tightly in her grip.

A weapon _entirely_ unlike the one Ienzo understood her to specialize in.

Ienzo felt the muscles in his face grow slack as his brain faltered in processing information his eyes were giving it.

How.

In _all worlds._

Did _Larxene_ have a _Keyblade._

Ienzo didn’t even have the brain capacity to feel irritated about Larxene’s visible amusement in response to his shock, because _her partner in crime_ followed her lead, reaching out _his_ hand, and one flurry of petals later, well, someone with a working brain and pattern recognition abilities that were fully functioning might have _less surprised_ the second time, but that was a _very_ poor descriptor of Ienzo’s brain at that moment, so.

There was a large stretch of silence as Ienzo’s brain took its time rebooting and integrating this new information, broken only by Larxene’s unfortunately inevitable fit of laughter at Ienzo’s likely hilarious expression of frozen shock.

By the time Ienzo could actually function again, Demyx was also having to hold back laughter. Ienzo begrudgingly accepted this, too, because the first thing he’d managed to say upon regaining the power of speech was a paltry “… ah, I see.”

Enough was enough, though. Ienzo took in a deep breath and released, then shook his head for good measure.

“Well,” he said, crossing his arms in an attempt to reattain some semblance of normal posture and tone of voice. “That… certainly is… something.”

Larxene laughed harder, and Ienzo cringed internally, because he still couldn’t blame her. Despite wanting to. _Desperately._

He cleared his throat, and tried one more time. “So, this is what you were wondering about after all?”

“Some of it, anyway,” Demyx said through his own held-back laughter. He paused, though, mirth disappearing into a frown. “I got a lot _more_ questions, honestly.”

Ah, something besides his own confusion for Ienzo to focus on, excellent. With a slight tilt of his head, he asked, “How so?”

“Well, you saw the ‘Keyblade’ part,” Demyx said, gesturing at the weapons Larxene and Marluxia still held still held. Upon Demyx’s indication, Larxene’s laughter paused long enough for her to flourish her weapon a little; Marluxia simply maintained the same air of detached but strong amusement he’d been keeping up since he summoned his own.

Demyx rolled his eyes, then continued. “Turns out, according to memories these two have but I don’t — and don’t ask me about Luxord, because who even knows about anything with that guy — “ the man in question looked up from where he’d been messing with his cards in the corner of the room to offer a vaguely infuriating smirk — “the ‘ancient’ part of the ‘ancient Keyblade legacy’ thing was just as real and just as ridiculous.”

Ienzo narrowed his eyes, glancing briefly at all of the people in the room before returning his gaze to Demyx. “… _How_ ancient, exactly?”

“Oh, you probably haven’t heard of it,” Larxene butt in, a sarcastically dismissive wave of her free hand punctuating her statement. “A little something called ‘the Keyblade War?”

… What?

Ienzo blinked rapidly about a half dozen times before giving Larxene his best look of complete and utter disbelief. “Are… you can’t be serious.”

“Oh, what,” Larxene huffed, “you don’t trust the opinion of the people who were _there?”_

… _What._

“How could you _possibly_ have _been_ there?” Ienzo demanded, not sure he was fully conscious; did something go wrong when his brain was rebooting earlier? Was all of this some bizarre illusion? He was almost impressed. “The Keyblade War _exceeds common memory,_ if people have even heard of it it’s as a legend, the two of you are _barely older than I am,_ I could go on —”

“Yeah, well,” Larxene huffed, cutting him off. She cocked her head to the side and put the hand not holding her _absolutely impossible_ Keyblade on her hip. “That’s what we wanna know too, for your information, or else we wouldn’t be bothering with you or any of the fuddy-duddies in this stupid stuck-up world _at all!_ So don’t think you can just —”

“Elrena,” Marluxia put a hand on her shoulder, and she jolted, her head snapping to glare at him. He raised an eyebrow, and her eyes widened just a bit before settling into a very different sort of glare, this one extremely put-upon.

“Ugh, right, playing nice, you’re right,” she sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter if you _believe_ us or whatever, we can get all the proof we need if you and all your little lab partners work with us. So where are the rest of the nerds, anyway?”

… This was going to be a disaster. There was no way to reintroduce these two groups without the castle going up in flames, and that wasn’t even thinking about Roxas and Xion _and Naminé._

And thus, because there was absolutely no way to make this handleable, no way to be sure if the two of them were serious or simply mind-addled from consecutive heart loss and recompletion, and _no way_ to avoid confrontation, it was clearly much simpler to just rip the proverbial bandage off and shove them upstairs into the same room as everyone else — it couldn’t be less stressful than complex planning. If he needed to take Naminé out of the situation, he could — or Xion or Roxas or Lea could, for that matter.

Xion spent time with Isa after all of the nonsense he’d heard about, didn’t she? And of course Lea had basically had Ienzo himself killed, and they had friendly conversations all the time. Even could get over himself long enough to hear out —

“… wait, what are your names, now?” Ienzo asked as his train of thought briefly derailed. “Demyx doesn’t remember his, but it seems like I should’ve asked already…”

“Oh, for —” Larxene — Elrena? Did Marluxia call her that a moment ago? — put a palm to her face. “This introduction song and dance is going to be a recurring thing, isn’t it? Just because our stupid old boss had a stupid fixation on his own stupid name…”

“I’m Lauriam, and she’s Elrena,” her partner offered, expression still somehow one of fairly neutral amusement. Elrena huffed, but said nothing.

“Right,” Ienzo nodded, returning to his earlier thought train. What was it, ripping off the bandage? In that case… “Follow me, then, I suppose.”

He turned towards the door and started walking, decidedly not thinking about the train wreck that was to come.

* * *

It made sense for Naminé to feel out of place. Or, so she reasoned to herself, anyway.

After all, there was a general sense of unease surrounding everyone, after… well…

Kairi was barely talking. Riku was running all over the place trying to find any sort of actual direction. The group of friends she once imagined herself standing alongside was… broken.

Being around Even and Ienzo and the others at Radiant Garden was… better? She wasn’t sure, really; they were definitely more disconnected from the loss, arguably more sure of Sora’s eventual return, and Naminé’s powers had been an important part of their initial research, so maybe it made sense for her to stay and help with some of their work…?

… but she _was_ mourning Sora. Not the same way as Kairi, who he’d given his life to save, or Riku, who’d given him the idea, but Sora’s _existence_ was an important part of _hers_ , and so _of course_ she felt the gaping hole where he used to be. Radiant Garden’s disconnectedness was only so helpful in reconciling her feelings — especially when she still occasionally forgot that Even wasn’t still there to experiment on her powers without her consent. He was different now, she _knew_ , he’d helped her regain her body, helped save so many of her friends, but, well… she knew all too well how powerful memories could be.

Xion and Roxas, at least, understood her state of being the best — the uncomfortable mix of triumph and tragedy, the new existence as Replicas, all of that — and Lea was just nice to be around, so Twilight Town was where she’d been spending most of her time. Isa was surprisingly easy to get along with, too; something about him encouraged comfortable silences where Naminé could simply exist as herself. Xion would join them, sometimes, making comfortable light conversations about Naminé’s latest art project or something Lea and Roxas had done that day to make Isa roll his eyes, and it was nice. It hadn’t quite been what she’d imagined, and it still felt like some piece didn’t quite fit, but somehow it all felt like things would work out anyway — like she had a solid foundation, and all she would need now was something to grab onto to build to the ending she wanted.

Naminé wondered, sometimes, in those moments of peaceful quiet, if Kairi and Riku were missing that foundation, now that Sora was gone, and wondered what, if anything, she might be able to do to provide that for them — wondered if that was the chance she was waiting to grab onto.

She certainly hadn’t expected to have that chance presented to her in an exam room in the Radiant Garden castle, and she _very_ certainly hadn’t expected the source it would come from.

Even was just about at the edge of his patience waiting for Ienzo, about to either go looking for him or start the examination without him, when the man in question walked into the room. As he looked around the room, his expression immediately twisted like a weight had been dropped on top of him, and every person in the room was immediately on edge. Lea and Isa stepped closer to Naminé and Xion as Roxas moved to get off the bench he was currently sitting on, Even took up a posture of _extreme_ frustration, and while she couldn’t see them, Naminé heard Aeleus and Dilan shift their posture on the other side of the room.

Ienzo sighed, a hand coming up to his face. “Alright, well, this may as well happen this way, why not…”

Taking a deep breath, he straightened, seemingly trying to keep his tone casual and detached. “Demyx found the rest of the recompleted Organization.”

Silence.

“… oh, man, no, do _not_ tell me,” Lea’s head fell into his hands, “you are _not_ saying —”

“They’re not currently hostile, I’ve confirmed that myself,” Ienzo cut him off, gesturing a bit. “In fact, they’re requesting our assistance — they have access to some of the information Demyx is missing as it pertains to their shared past, but many of the pieces are missing, so they’re offering to work with us to find the answers.”

“Okay, sure,” Lea tossed his head. “Mr. and Mrs. Coup-d’état are here to help us, I absolutely believe that.”

“I don’t necessarily trust them either, of course,” Ienzo raised an eyebrow, “but as I’ve said, they certainly aren’t hostile right now, and there’s a very specific set of extenuating circumstances that apply to Larxene and Marluxia — or, rather, Elrena and Lauriam — that bears an extreme amount of significance, regardless of anything else.”

Lea gave a dissatisfied noise, with a grimace to match, and then turned to look at Naminé.

Naminé had not been fully thinking since Ienzo had made his first statement.

Sure, she’d noticed that Ienzo had continued talking, and she’d sort of taken in the general tone of his remarks and the fact that Lea had moved even closer to her as well as the fact that Even was now arguing with Ienzo. Later, she’d probably remember what Ienzo said about the memories or working together, even, but right now —

Right now her brain was stuck — stuck picturing Larxene shoving her to the ground, or Marluxia looming over her, or both of them hurting Sora because of her or —

“Naminé?”

There was a hand in hers.

“Naminé, can you hear me?”

…That was a voice from _new_ memories, not the old ones.

“… Xion…?” Naminé blinked, feeling her eyes refocusing on the black hair and blue eyes in front of her, sheer concern radiating from _her friend,_ because she was _not_ in Castle Oblivion and she was _not_ alone and she had people who cared about her for _who she was —_

“Should we leave?” Xion asked, squeezing Naminé’s hand lightly. “They’re going to come in, I think, and Ienzo says they just want to talk, but if you don’t want to be here and see them we can leave right now. Do you want to?”

Naminé could see, now, could see that Roxas had moved to stand next to Lea, a solid barrier between Naminé and the door Ienzo had come through — could see that Isa had stepped out in front, and that his posture had shifted entirely to a state that she’d only experienced through secondhand memories and would’ve made her shudder in fear if he wasn’t —

— wasn’t _on her side._

They were all on _her side_.

She didn’t have to see the faces about to walk through the door — she could leave, and they would think no less of her.

Or she could stay. She could stay and if they tried to hurt her they would _regret it._

And if they didn’t want to hurt her — if they truly just wanted to talk — she didn’t want to trust the words of others. She wanted to see it with her own eyes.

Naminé took a deep breath, and squeezed Xion’s hand back, then shook her head. “I’m okay.”

Xion gave a tiny smile and a nod. “Alright then. I’m here for you if you change your mind.”

They both turned their attention to the door, it thankfully not opening until just then. Naminé tensed as a familiar voice came through.

“Finally!” Larxene swept into the room, past Demyx, who seemed to have tried to get in first, and Ienzo, who’d opened the door. “Honestly, what in all worlds was —”

She and Naminé locked eyes. Larxene’s face went slack, her gaze darting around the room to take in its other occupants before landing back on Naminé.

There was a blink, during which Marluxia came up behind Larxene, and his gaze went around the room in almost the exact same journey as hers.

While her face remained mostly blank, though, his became visibly pained — not dramatically, but enough.

“… Ah.”

His gaze dropped to the ground, and Larxene tossed her head to the side, blank expression twisted into… anger? No, that wasn’t quite right — Naminé knew better than most what Larxene’s anger looked like, and this expression was something she’d never seen before.

There was a stretch of silence. Naminé was… she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. For _them_ to freeze upon seeing _her_ — for them to not ignore her but not target her in any way — that was something that she had no real idea how to process.

Their expressions — pain, anger… they couldn’t be _guilt,_ that wasn’t…

The silence stretched; it seemed she wasn’t the only one with no idea how to react.

Finally, Even, of all people, broke that silence, with a characteristic huff.

“Well?”

Marluxia and Larxene’s gazes shot up, their eyes narrowing. Even lifted his chin and raised an eyebrow in response.

Larxene scoffed. “Fine, sure, let’s get this over with. You wanna know why we’re here?”

She lifted her right arm, and every set of eyes immediately zeroed in to the object that arm hefted with it — an object none of them had noticed, despite its distinct appearance: dull metal, spikes surrounding a handle held in a reverse grip, small sparks crackling quietly around the opposite end —

The opposite end of the _Keyblade_ that _Larxene_ held in her hand.

Marluxia shifted, taking a step forward as he brought his own arm into view.

Along with _another Keyblade._

Naminé had no response — she’d barely processed their entrance, this was… but, well, she wasn’t everyone.

“Are you **_SERIOUS?!”_**

Lea drew all of the attention in the room with his sudden yell. His face was twisted into an expression that Naminé was somehow able to process as ‘comically bothered’ despite her brain not having proper responses to anything else that was happening.

“All that time?” Lea spluttered. “I spent ages — LITERAL AGES! — trying to figure out how to get my stupid thing to work, and — and YOU TWO, you just _WALK IN HERE_ and tell us you could’ve been whipping out Keyblades this **_WHOLE TIME?!”_**

Lea’s arms made wide, sweeping gestures as he ranted, until finally he stilled in a vaguely hunched-over position with his arms held out weakly towards the two Keyblades.

He sighed, then, his posture slumping entirely as his arms fell to his sides and his head fell forward.

“I can’t believe this…”

There was another bit of silence, and then…

“Pft…”

Larxene’s free hand came up to her mouth to muffle her snort of laughter, but it was useless; soon she was almost double over, cackling up a storm.

“Powers, you’re RIGHT!” She managed through it all. “This is absolutely ridiculous! These dumb keys and this stupid standoff and — pfthahahaHA! This is all so DUMB!”

She took a deep breath as her laughter started to peter off, and turned towards Naminé, who made a point to maintain eye contact as strongly as possible.

“Look,” Larxene said. “I did a lot of bad stuff to you — I was _awful._ I wasn’t really all of myself, but that doesn’t matter; what _does_ matter is that I am _never_ letting myself do that nonsense ever again — I’m _never_ letting myself forget what matters to me the way I did, and I’m _never_ going to hurt anyone the way I hurt you. Especially you.”

“… And the same goes for me,” Marluxia added, though he didn’t meet Naminé’s eyes. “I… I have a younger sister. She would never forgive me if I repeated my past mistakes — especially the ones regarding you. I…”

Cautiously — hesitantly, even? As though he were _afraid?_ — Marluxia turned his gaze from what was either the floor or… his Keyblade, and finally met Naminé’s eyes.

“No apology would be sufficient; Elrena and I both understand that. Despite that…”

Marluxia took a breath and… _bowed._

“You deserved none of the suffering I put you through in my grasps at power. I am truly sorry.”

“Oh, you’ll apologize to her before the people you had killed,” Even huffed. Naminé couldn’t get a real estimate on whether he was actually annoyed or making some kind of bizarre attempt to deescalate the situation, because _she had not been prepared for Marluxia appearing before her, afraid of rebuke, and bowing in apology to her to happen to her today._

“In my defense,” Marluxia said, straightening and raising an eyebrow in Even’s direction. “You _were_ about to endanger all of us by ruining not only my plans for Sora but arguably all of the Organization’s — all for the sake of my demise, specifically, if I recall.”

“I wouldn’t have had to resort to such things if you hadn’t reached so far beyond your place!” Even shot back, his voice not as raised as it probably _could’ve_ been, but still not exactly pleasant. “The sheer audacity you were displaying was going to get all of us eliminated sooner or later, so I considered it valid damage control if it happened only to a few of us."

“Yes, _clearly_ that affords you a moral high ground, here,” Larxene’s voice was thick with not only sarcasm but also an edge of something akin to disbelief.

“Actually, uh, about that…” Lea cut in, hand on the back of his neck and his eyes averted. “See, uh… might be confession time here, uh…”

He shot a glance at Isa, who crossed his arms and pointedly turned his gaze towards a wall.

Lea sighed, rubbed that spot at the base of his skull, and continued. “The things is, Even uh… isn’t _wrong,_ exactly? But not really right either, see, uh…”

“It isn’t exactly a secret you were there to eliminate me if my plans proved to be what they were,” Marluxia — huffed? With indignation? In a way that was neither elegant _nor_ detached?

Naminé couldn’t be awake. She had to be projecting someone else’s personality onto Marluxia’s face in some kind of bizarre dream.

“That’s not really it, see…” Lea threw his head back with a noise that was some bizarre mix of a sigh, and groan, and a choked laugh. “I was… supposed to eliminate you… no matter what, actually.”

“… Excuse me?” Marluxia said, in a voice that made Naminé have to repress a small shudder — Xion’s hand in hers kept her steady, but still. Maybe not a dream after all, then.

“Yeah, see…” Lea threw another glance at Isa, who was still staring _very_ pointedly at the wall. “Well, the thing is, it uh… wasn’t _just_ you?”

“Why am I not surprised?” Larxene drawled out. “Not that the higher-ups were wrong, I suppose, and Xemnas wasn’t exactly the type to give someone the benefit of the doubt anyway, but still.”

“No, that’s not —” Another glance at Isa, then a huff. “C’mon, man, you can’t leave me alone on this…”

Isa’s eyes were now closed, his frown very dramatic. It was honestly a rather interesting expression in context — some part of Naminé’s very overwhelmed brain wanted to draw it, if only because of the context.

Lea gave a sigh, his head sinking into his hands.

“Fine,” he said after a second. “Fine!”

He took a deep breath, hands slowly coming down his face, before letting out, all in one breath:

“Iwastheonlyonewhowassupposedtoleavethatstupidcastlealive. There. There! That’s the truth. I was supposed to eliminate all of you if you didn’t manage to all off each other yourselves, confession over, ask Isa for details, I’m _done.”_

“… _Excuse me?!”_ Even not-quite-shrieked.

Ienzo gave an almost-laugh. “Why am _I_ not surprised… I had figured that might be it, by the end.”

“… Okay, that reminds me,” Lea narrowed his eyes at Ienzo. “The first thing you did when we both woke up was _exposit_ at me.”

Ienzo merely offered a shrug in response. “Other things to worry about. You didn’t try to repeat the experience, Even and Dilan were still unconscious, and you seemed to be willing to work with what I told you, so I didn’t pay it much mind. After all of that, I was busy with the gummiphone development, and working on the replicas, and by that point you’d busied yourself with having a Keyblade and making a habit of saving people, so I didn’t feel the need to fear for my life — you’re very clearly a different person than you were.”

“… Thanks…?” Lea managed, his hand going back to the spot on the back of his neck it usually went when he was unsure.

“If I wasn’t resolved to be a better man I would freeze you solid and take pleasure into breaking you into millions of pieces,” Even said in a low voice, hands on his temples.

Larxene snorted, then seemed surprised at her own laughter. Marluxia seemed surprised in general.

“… I’m not sure if knowing we were all basically doomed makes me feel better or worse…” he muttered.

“We spent all that time being jerks and not remembering anything important and it wasn’t even _potentially_ worth anything!” Larxene snapped. “I know how _I_ feel!”

“Isa, do _not_ run away from me on this,” Lea hissed, making Isa’s grimace grow.

There was a low grumble, and Lea moved between Isa and the wall, clearing his throat to make Isa open his eyes while giving the most pointed look Naminé had ever seen — another thing she’d have to draw later. Isa responded by flicking his head the other direction, but all that got him was a whole host of curious, accusing, or otherwise pointed looks that he’d so far been trying to avoid.

His grimace twisted even more, somehow, before he gave a sharp huff.

“In retrospect it was entirely foolish and I am _fully aware of that fact,”_ he said, “but at the time it seemed like an entirely logical plot to both gain Xemnas’s trust and undermine the existing power structures within the Organization. Likely Xigbar was laughing at me behind my back the entire time.”

Lea sagged a bit, muttering, “There, was that so hard? Sheesh…”

“… It seems that all of us made a number of foolish decisions without our hearts,” Marluxia said, an odd sort of humor in his voice.

“It really is easier to discount most of it,” Ienzo shrugged again. “To a certain degree, the difference in lucidity surrounding our motivations and desires makes us almost entirely different people now.”

“I can get behind that way of thinking,” Demyx chimed in, surprising no one, with an expression that made clear he knew he was surprising no one.

It was another thing Naminé had a strange urge to draw…

Roxas, whose posture and expression had gone gradually from accusing to disbelieving to casual without feeling the need to comment on drama that had basically nothing to do with him, finally offered a comment.

“I’m entirely astonished the Organization lasted for as long as it did, for the record.”

No one disagreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get the inevitable meeting between Naminé, Elrena, and Lauriam out of the way early in the story for a number of reasons you will see in the next few chapters, but mostly because I know that that whole part of the story is a major sticking point for people being able to care about these two. I hope the way I addressed it satisfies everyone, and that my characterization works pretty well. Ienzo is a character who can be interpreted a lot of ways, for instance, and while I felt like Naminé would be the best POV character for that last section I wasn't sure if the way I did the narration really worked, but I'm still pretty proud of it!
> 
> So, what will this newly reunited group get up to next? What steps will they take in reclaiming their pasts and solving the mysteries surrounding them? Find out next time, on Seeds to the Wind!


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